The Cellist in the Ruins

On May 27, 1992, a mortar shell struck a bread line in Sarajevo, killing twenty-two people who had simply been waiting for food. The city was under siege — buildings crumbling, sniper fire cracking through the streets, the mountains surrounding the valley turned into instruments of destruction. The earth, quite literally, was giving way.

The next afternoon, Vedran Smailovic, principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera, carried his cello to the crater where the shell had landed. He wore his full concert black. And there, surrounded by rubble and the smell of smoke, he played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor. He returned every day for twenty-two days — one for each person killed.

Snipers were still active. Shells still fell. The mountains still shook with artillery. But Smailovic sat in the middle of it and played.

Something about that image arrests us, and it should — because it is the very posture Psalm 46 describes. The waters roar. The nations rage. The earth melts. And yet, right in the center of the city, God is present. "She will not fall; God will help her at break of day."

Smailovic could not stop the war. But the Almighty can. He breaks the bow. He shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire. The cellist offered beauty in the middle of destruction. The Most High offers something greater — He offers stillness itself. "Be still," He says, "and know that I am God."